Not Burdensome

Christianity is hard, very hard. Subjecting oneself to the world’s most radical way of life is hard. Living as a sojourner, isolating yourself from the world, is hard. CHRISTIANITY is hard, but here’s the twist; loving CHRIST is not.

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)

Really? Are they not burdensome? Is that how most believers see it?

It is worth pondering why many people in this age, find ‘his commands’ burdensome when they weren’t so for John and many of the early Christians. How could the believers in Rome be rejoicing, even in the midst of the fiercest persecutions? What attracted the scholarly minded Saul to give up the fun of living in the bustling metropolis of Tarsus, privileges of Roman citizenship, passion for his studies, his honourable position as a near-perfect Pharisee; and instead to choose the wandering, suffering-filled life of a poor Christian?

One difference, perhaps, is that many of us follow ‘Christianity’ while they were following ‘Christ.’ Most of us understand what this means.

We live in times where faith has degraded. Loving God has become impersonal. For many, Christianity is just following a rigid set of dos and don’ts. It would be wrong to say that there should be no rules and regulations, but when the Word and Christian life is seen only as a compilation of rules and regulations, it would kill our faith over time; The Bible becomes a handbook of requirements which need to be fulfilled to earn a visa and citizenship in the Heavenly Republic; and some earthly success on top, too!

This mechanical viewpoint has made our faith tiresome for so many, who simply grovel in this system; The beautiful symbols of our love for God have crystallized into lifeless traditions. This is accompanied by forced conformity to the set patterns of the Christian society and a whole lot of needless languishing in said system.

We know the dictums and customs, but don’t know what it is like to really talk to Him and experience Him as a loving Father right beside us. Fear of punishment is the only reason many abstain from sin, and for others, it is the desire to bribe God into getting us things we want. The common analogy of a vending machine comes to mind.

Sadly, we have reduced the living God to a being like the gods of the heathen; our covenant with Him to a contract; and our glorious freedom in Christ to a drudgery. Many believers chose Christ to escape hell, but never realized that not growing beyond this understanding of our faith was to cling to spiritual babyhood.

Another problem is our attempt to obey Him in our own strength. But we know that God’s standards are impossibly high for humans to accomplish by their own will and power. Why would we even attempt to reach them without divine empowerment? And yet the filling of the Holy Spirit, hourly and prayerful dependence on God for grace, and above all, the attitude that we can do nothing, by ourselves, for pleasing God (John 15:5b)—all these are foreign to many believers!

No wonder we go astray so easily! No wonder rejoicing in the Lord (Phil 4:4) seems like a meaningless and impossible task!

What is the antidote to this dreary way of life?

Believers need to realize the truths we have discussed above, and be committed to a life of drawing ever nearer to God. The crux of Christianity is Christ and our intimacy with Him. We need a growing, raging hunger for a life with Christ that is so much more than what we currently experience. And we need to take that hunger to the throne of God and plead for Him to fill us and everyone we know (Matt 5:6, Heb 4:11). We must recognize God’s presence that is with us wherever we are: to strengthen, comfort, and guide. We need to study the word of God as the true manual for the real Christian life—if we want to understand how this life is really meant to be lived. We need to share what we learn with others: enough mindless chatter at the end of church meetings! Let us have real fellowship, where we encourage each other in this race we are called to run.

Paul chose his life as a missionary over everything because he was compelled by this love of Christ. Christians smiled through turmoil because of the joy of suffering for someone they loved far outstripped their pain. God was not an impersonal abstraction to them, but a living being with whom they were in a deep personal relationship. They did not care what the world thought as long as the One they loved was pleased with them. Abraham, David and Moses were men who knew God’s heart: they had a loving, moment-by-moment relationship with Him.

It does become a lot harder to sin when one realises that the person they love is right next to them. Sin is unfaithfulness to a loving God. How much harder it would be to sin when you feel the grief that is caused to God by sin! How much easier it would be to stay on ‘the narrow path’ when we are not clinging to it only with our flimsy strength! Such are the men and women whom Satan fears; Such are the men who have revolutionized the world with Gospel. Such are the men and women who find His word sweet (Ps. 119:103) and “His burden, light (Mat. 11:30).”

Why do you follow Jesus? Why do you obey Him? How do you obey Him? It’s worth thinking about.